How Binance is buying up the crypto industry

Crypto exchange Binance today announced it has acquired DappReview, a Beijing-based data analytics platform for decentralized applications. This becomes Binance’s fourth acquisition, according to data from Crunchbase—alongside investments it has made with its venture capital arm Binance Labs. Let’s take a look back at what the crypto exchange is planning.

Here are all the companies now in Binance’s empire.

DappReview

DappReview, founded in February 2018, provides insight into over 3,900 dapps to more than 300,000 monthly active users. It was acquired today by Binance.

DappReview will retain control over its product after Binance’s acquisition, and will push out new analytics tools in the first quarter of 2020. Binance will help out in non-technical areas, such as marketing and business development.

“Our next step is to partner with more blockchain protocols and developers on dapp data integration, and push for dapps adoption on a greater scale,” said Vincent Niu, Founder and CEO of DappReview.

But why did Binance buy it?

While Binance denies having a Shanghai office, the exchange has a lot of reach in Asia. It’s possible the acquisition could be to expand its reach in that market.

“[DappReview] has been instrumental in connecting the Chinese community with the Western community,” said Benny Giang, founding team member of Dapper Labs, the developer of gaming dapp CryptoKitties.

Crypto analyst Eric Wall had another take. “It’s consistent with Binance’s plan of building a ‘blockchain ecosystem’,” he told Decrypt. Wall suspects the primary allure is DappReview’s ability to monetize traffic from casino-like blockchain games.

WazirX.

Binance acquired Indian crypto exchange WazirX late last month, granting Binance a way in to one of the world’s most populous nations. Following the acquisition of the Mumbai-based startup, customers can buy the stablecoin, Tether (USDT) using the Indian rupee, providing Indians with easy access to the exchange. Reports put the acquisition between five and ten million dollars.

Binance’s acquisition comes amid regulatory uncertainty for India’s crypto scene. Though India last week announced a national strategy for blockchain, it has previously spoken out against cryptocurrencies. India has discussed plans to implement a ten year jail sentence for crypto users, and the country’s central bank has barred banks from conducting transactions with crypto exchanges.

JEX

In September, Binance acquired JEX, a crypto exchange for futures and derivatives trading.

In addition to rebranding the service to Binance JEX, Binance took control of the JEX Foundation’s JEX tokens. It planned to distribute them to members of the community through marketing initiatives, like airdrops. Then, it would buy back the tokens in order to burn them—something it does regularly with its native BNB token.

Binance JEX offers three pairings: USDT/BTC, USDT/ETH, and USDT/EOS. In the past 24 hours, Binance JEX has traded around $18 million.

For now, Binance JEX pales in comparison to Binance’s other futures contracts trading platform, Binance Futures, which in the past 24 hours traded contracts worth almost 100,000 bitcoins ($735,164,000).

Trust Wallet

The acquisition of Trust Wallet, a mobile cryptocurrency wallet, in July 2018, was Binance’s first purchase. Bought for an undisclosed sum, US-based Trust Wallet remained independence, and, once again, Binance will help grow the business by handling non-technical aspects, like marketing.

At the time, Binance’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao, told TechCrunch, “We are like the addition of a godfather for the baby.”